Tess of the D'Urbervilles

When John Durbeyfield discovers a family connection to the ancient Norman family, the D'Urbervilles, the fate of daughter Tess is transformed. Sent by her ambitious parents to visit her wealthy D'Urberville cousins, Tess attracts the attention of the unscrupulous Alec. Seduced and discarded by him and alone in the world, she finds work as a milkmaid and the love of Angel Clare. Yet his love cannot accept the truth about Tess's past.

North and South

Written at the request of Charles Dickens,
North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....

A Passage to India

Dr. Aziz is a young Muslim physician in the British Indian town of Chandrapore. One evening he comes across an English woman, Mrs. Moore, in the courtyard of a local mosque; she and her younger travelling companion Adela are disappointed by claustrophobic British colonial culture and wish to see something of the 'real' India. But when Aziz kindly offers to take them on a tour of the Marabar caves with his close friend Cyril Fielding, the trip results in a shocking accusation....

Middlemarch

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

The Secret Agent

Exclusively from Audible.
The Secret Agent is based on an actual attempt made in 1894 to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. A labyrinth of greed, corruption, and betrayal, it is the most darkly humorous of all Conrad's tales. It follows a European secret agent, Adolf Verloc, 'a London shop owner' with anarchist leanings who becomes reluctantly involved in a plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. Full of great characters, melodramatic irony and psychological intrigue the tale is far from simple....

Rebecca

Daphne du Maurier's young heroine meets the charming Maxim de Winter and despite her youth, they marry and go to Manderley, his home in Cornwall. There, the sinister housekeeper Mrs Danvers and the mystery she keeps alive of his first wife Rebecca - said to have drowned at sea - threatens to overwhelm the marriage.

Monarchy

The crown of England is the oldest surviving political institution in Europe. Throughout this audiobook Dr David Starkey emphasises the Crown's endless capacity to adapt to circumstances and reshape national policy, whilst he unmasks the personalities and achievements, the defeats and victories, which lie behind the kings and queens of British history. Each of these monarchs has contributed to the religion, geography, laws, language, and government which we live with today.

Atonement

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination.

The Ruby in the Smoke

An unabridged reading of Philip Pullman's nerve-shattering thriller, set in the murky streets and opium dens of Old London. When 16-year old Sally's father drowns in suspicious circumstances, she is left to fend for herself in Victorian London. Although she doesn't know it, she is already in terrible danger.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

In August of 1914, the British ship
Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October, 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.

Audible Originals takes to the high seas to bring to life this timeless tale of pirates, lost treasure maps and mutiny. When weathered old sailor Billy Bones arrives at the inn of young Jim Hawkins' parents, it is the start of an adventure beyond anything he could have imagined. When Bones dies mysteriously, Jim stumbles across a map of a mysterious island in his sea chest, where X marks the spot of a stash of buried pirate gold.

Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days

In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat? Ian Mortimer shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. He sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you to the Middle Ages. The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: evolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. Philby's two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone, and then discovered they had not known him at all.

The Big Sleep

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out - and that's before he stumbles over the first corpse.

Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

They were known as the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege in the early years of the 20th century, they became prominent as 'bright young things' in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark - and very public - differences in their outlooks came to symbolize the political polarities of a dangerous decade.

Pompeii - The Life of a Roman Town

Pompeii explodes a number of myths - among them, the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought; the hygiene of the baths which must have been hotbeds of germs; the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one; and the death count, which was probably less than ten per cent of the population. These are just a few of the strands that make up an extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain’s leading classicist.

Solaris: The Definitive Edition

At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation, unabridged for the first time, and the first ever direct translation from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.

So, Anyway...: The Autobiography

John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter's Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic homelife, with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work, as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman.

Waterloo

The bloodbath at Waterloo ended a war that had engulfed the world for over 20 years. It also finished the career of the charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. It ensured the final liberation of Germany and the restoration of the old European monarchies, and it represented one of very few defeats for the glorious French army, most of whose soldiers remained devoted to their Emperor until the very end.

Die Last: DC Max Wolfe Series, Book 4

As dawn breaks on a snowy February morning, a refrigerated lorry is found parked in the heart of London's Chinatown. Inside, 12 women, apparently illegal immigrants, are dead from hypothermia. But in the cab, DC Max Wolfe finds 13 passports. Twelve dead women. Thirteen passports. The hunt for the missing woman will take Max Wolfe into the dark heart of the world of human smuggling, mass migration and 21st-century slave markets.

My Cousin Rachel: Film Tie-In Edition

Ambrose Ashley, Philip's cousin, guardian, and god, married Rachel in Italy and died there. Jealous of his marriage and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart.

Reamde

Richard Forthrast created T’Rain, a multibillion-dollar, massively multiplayer online role-playing game. But T’Rain’s success has also made it a target. Hackers have struck gold by unleashing REAMDE, a virus that encrypts all of a player’s electronic files and holds them for ransom. They have also unwittingly triggered a deadly war beyond the boundaries of the game’s virtual universe - and Richard is at ground zero.

Cosmos

Cosmos is one of the best-selling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.

Publisher's Summary

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley.

Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

Other characters include Sissy, the circus girl with love to spare who is deserted and adopted into the Gradgrind family, as well as the honest mill worker Stephen Blackpool and the bombastic mill owner Josiah Bounderby.

The story is a vehement condemnation of industrialisation and its dehumanising effects on its workers and communities in mid-19th-century England. George Orwell praised Dickens and the novel for its 'generous anger.'

Concentrated and compressed in its narrative form, Hard Times is at once a fable, a audiobook of ideas, and a social story that seeks to engage directly and analytically with political issues.

It may be one of Dickens's shortest works but it is also one of his triumphs.

One of eight children, Dickens came from a very poor family, with his father eventually being sent to debtor's prison. At the age of 12, Dickens was forced to start work in a blacking factory in order to help clear the family debt. His troublesome childhood likely contributed to some of the novel's ideas and lent him a sympathetic voice for the poor.

Due to his vivid depictions of the poverty-stricken, 'Dickensian' has ingrained itself in the English language, becoming the choice word to describe an unacceptable level of poverty.

Narrator Biography

Martin Jarvis is one of Britain's most admired actors. His audiobook output is legendary. He is described in Vanity Fair as 'the Olivier of audiobooks' and 'genius of the Spoken Word' in the LA Times. Award-winning recordings range from titles by Charles Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse and Michael Frayn to thrillers by Jeffrey Archer, Wilbur Smith, Ian Fleming and Dick Francis.

Martin Jarvis has starred in many acclaimed West End and National Theatre productions and received the Theatre World Award as Jeeves on Broadway. Numerous UK television appearances encompass Law & Order, Doctor Who, Endeavour, Inspector Morse and The Forsyte Saga. In America: Murder She Wrote, Numb3rs, Cosmos and Walker, Texas Ranger. Films include Titanic, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Wreck-It Ralph. Videogames: 'Alfred' in Batman, 'Finn McMissile' in Cars.

Martin is invested by HM the Queen as Officer of Order of the British Empire (OBE).

This is another masterpiece from the master storyteller. Although this is not his finest work (it peters out towards the end). Nevertheless the story moves along at a good pace drawing the listener into the lives of this carefully intertwined group of classic Dickens characters.
As ever Martin Jarvis produces a tour de force of characterisation which enhances the story wonderfully.

I read this on a Kindle (which was free on amazon) and listened at the same time. Martin Jarvis's distinct and pertinent voices for all the characters were superb and totally brought the book to life. I've never read Dickens before and chose this one following a recent visit to the Dickens museum in London and also because my son has to study it at school. I never knew how funny Dickens was. Humour abounds. Brilliant turns of phrase. A really enjoyable read and listen! But I am sure it is as good as this due to Martin Jarvis's narration.

I may be biased as Coketown is based on my hometown of Preston but I found the story, the characters and the way Martin Jarvis brings those characters to life a triumph. It may not be Dickens' deepest or intense plot but I'm sure any Dickens' fan will enoy this book. I'm looking forward to the next Jarvis narration of Dickens!

This is the 2nd unabridged Dickens that I've bought from Audible. Both have been narrated by the brilliant Martin Jarvis. I'm definitely going to see if there are any more available.

Dickens is a great novelist: in turns both comic and gripping, always humane.Martin Jarvis brings all the characters alive. If I read Dickens ( or other Victorian novelists) I sometimes get impatient and do them the injustice of skipping descriptive passages. But Martin Jarvis is such a good narrator that those parts are as easy to listen to as moments of action or dialogue, and I can really enjoy Dickens's language.

I find some of Dickens novels can be quite difficult to read and as I had never read Hard Times I was a little apprehensive how easy this novel would be to listen to but Martin Jarvis brings the characters to life and I was very pleased to have downloaded it. I shall be looking at the lists to find other Dickens that I have not read becuase the audio book is a super way of absorbing the story.

I absolutely loved this audiobook. Having never read any Dickens, and having failed to read A Christmas Carol once again, I decided to give Audible a try. I am overwhelmed by Martin Jarvis's wonderful ability to bring a story to life, by Dickens' fantastic storytelling, and by audiobooks in general. I have just downloaded Great Expectations, and hope to soon be brave enough to read Dickens myself.

This Audiobook of Charles Dickens??? novel Hard Times read by Martin Jarvis is excellent. I found myself by turns laughing, groaning, or tearing up, depending on how Dickens channeled by Jarvis wanted to make me feel.

The story is fast-paced and full of wonderful Dickensian descriptions (of buildings and people) and deliciously grotesque or charmingly good characters and plenty of admirably biting social commentary and satire directed at the awful union of Utilitarianism (fact-based rationalization of human beings in the service of the greater good) with the Industrial Revolution (chimneys spewing filthy writhing snakes of smoke, machinery moving up and down like imprisoned maddened elephants, workers dehumanized as ???Hands,??? all of it polluting the world while enriching the owners??? class). It is the angriest, most moving, and least corny book I???ve read by Dickens??? So many memorable scenes, as when ???Girl Number Twenty??? is asked to define a horse in the M???Choakumchild classroom, or when with bitter irony the factory mill windows lit at night are described as looking like fairy palaces, or when Josiah Bounderby???s mother finally sets the record straight.

Martin Jarvis is in fine form throughout, giving each character his or her own perfectly suitable voice and manner of speaking and reading Dickens??? words with great sensitivity and understanding and emotion and clarity. Hearing his Bounderby???s coarse bluster, Stephen Blackpool???s sad self-effacement, Tom Gradgrind???s sour self-pity, Sissy Jupe???s pure sympathy, James Harthouse???s amoral aristocratic bon mots, Mr. Sleary???s kind showman lispings, or any of the other characters is great pleasure.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Elizabeth H

Minneapolis

30/09/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Martin Jarvis is always superb!"

The magnificent Martin Jarvis lovingly brings each of the characters to life in an unforgettable performance. I've never yet been disappointed by him or by Dickens. Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Neil

San Francisco, CA, United States

26/10/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Another Dickens Classic Enjoy"

I have read numerous Dickens and this is another great story with all the fantastic characters that Dickens is known for. Martin Jarvis narration is first rate. Jarvis does a great interpretation of Mr. Bounderby and the funniest Mr. Sleary. Sleary comes at the end of the book, but it is worth the download just to hear Sleary. I read this book long ago, but listening to DIckens is really the key, as you understand the character much more by listening. I know the book confronts the English society of the times, but this book like many Dickens books is about the characters. If you don't know Dickens this is a good starter book as it is far shorter than any of his other books. Most of Dickens books are 800 to 1000 pages while this one is in the 300 hundred range. I think this book will hook one into being a Dickens and Jarvis fan.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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